SPN countdown to Season 10, day three. Season Three

[fufaraw]

This is a very wordy opinion post, probably boring for a lot of you, and I certainly won't mind if you skip it entire. I'll probably do a more emotional post, with pictures, later on today. Meanwhile, Things You May Not Have Known, or May Have Forgotten, About Season Three...

Leaving the brothers having just accomplished the lifelong goal set for them by their father, of killing the demon who took their mother's life, and hearing Dean say, "We've got work to do," set against the knowledge that Dean's soul is forfeit in a year's time, we went into hiatus with the storyline that began in Season one resolved, but a new arc just begun. Again, renewal was uncertain. Supernatural was no more "successful" in numbers, nor in the affections of the network Powers That Be, than it had been since its inception. And crew, staff, actors, and fans were left twisting in the wind while the suits threw darts to decide which shows would continue in the fall, and which would fall by the wayside.

In the distance there was the rumble of a writers' strike, with a definite date for negotiation resolution before the pencils went down, the keyboards went silent, and writers for all shows and movies walked away from their current projects. Campaigns of support started being planned--one of the most famous being truckloads of wooden pencils being dumped in front of studio gates as a "gesture." Though earnest, the people inciting this gesture failed to realize that recruiting volunteers to open hundreds--thousands--of pencils packaged by the dozen and add them loose to bins to be emptied into the truckloads meant that the pencils had to be hauled to the landfill afterward and couldn't even be donated to local schools, because there was no way to sort and repackage them and make them usable. It was a completely futile gesture.

What fans failed to recognize was that many of the writers had jobs that would wait for strike resolution, that afterward, they would be able to find work, that the Hollywood machine would recalibrate and move on. But what happened to the "Below the Line" workers was much more drastic. People who make film productions run--riggers, trucksters, drivers, electricians, makeup and often hair stylists, wardrobe, sound, film handlers and processors (now mostly redundant because of digital recording), directors, ADs, etc., all have guilds or unions. Their income is protected in case of work stoppage. Not so BTL workers. Craft service caterers, assistants from PAs to hair and wardrobe to general go-fers, dog walkers, all the small random jobs, often paid in cash, that someone needs to do get done by people who don't have the protection of guilds and unions. And it was BTL workers who were hit hardest by a strike. Most of them had to find other work, and delayed in doing so because that would mean when the strike ended, their job with the show they'd worked on, sometimes for seasons, would be filled by someone handy at the time if they were working elsewhere, bagging groceries or taking tickets at the cinemaplex. People adjacent to the film industry set up a BTL fund, and encouraged people to donate to it to keep BTL workers afloat until strike resolution, rather than spending that money on pencils.

But meanwhile, prior to the strike, TV's scriptwriters doubled down on efforts to stockpile scripts in case the strike did take place, to help keep their shows on air as long as possible while the strike went on.

Supernatural got news of the pickup for Season three, but it came with a laundry list of mandatory changes from the network suits. There was a determined attempt to bring the show in line with the other CW shows, which were heavy on sex, female skin, hair, and wardrobe, and romantic entanglements, backbiting, and intrigue. Our leads were definitely pretty enough for the CW, but they needed to be dressed up and put in more upscale settings, given gorgeous girls to adorn their arms and involve them in spats and tiffs and jealous rivalries.

Also on the list was some network suit's distaste for the washed-out, dark palette of filming, the noir look of the show which crew and fans were well aware was the soul and the hook of Supernatural. But to hew to network guidelines, a bright and colorful shine was imposed on scripts laboring to find their dark storyline in the oddly disjointed Toontown cartoonish palette. Suddenly, the very few deep mysterious shadows lighting and set designers were able to shoehorn into production had splashes of color, and there were a lot more daylight scenes. I for one blinked a lot at the beginning of Season three.

Production dealt with the changes as well as possible, meaning Kripke and Manners were as subversive as possible in giving the suits what they asked for, but in vicious, sharp-edged ways that did nothing to add cheer and happiness to the world of Supernatural. The female characters worked hard, but fans refused to incorporate them into the show's mythic core--they remained ancillary characters, and storylines most often left them adrift on the edges. As the season approached hiatus, the palette had begun to slowly soften and darken again. The network experiment had failed, pretty spectacularly. Creators and fans had a very firm concept of the show, and normal network standards gave way before it.

As hiatus approached, it became obvious the writers' strike was going to happen. For SPN it meant a shortened season--nobody knew how curtailed it would be, and what that would do the projected story arc for the season. Added to that was the very real worry that if the strike wasn't resolved before the end of the season that the CW just wouldn't pick the show up for a fourth season. As the deadline for the strike approached, everyone in the industry was uneasy.

Filming in Vancouver, one would have thought Supernatural would be immune from Hollywood politics. But if there are no scripts, then there's no work. So when the deadline came and passed with no resolution, SPN production continued until Kripke's stockpiled scripts were all filmed, and then they broke early for hiatus, and had no way of knowing if Supernatural would ever resume. Saying goodbye was not a happy time for anybody.

The new CW show, Reaper, a different approach to the supernatural and viewed by some as competition for SPN's viewership, moved into Supernatural's timeslot for the duration of the hiatus. This meant that no SPN repeats aired, thus removing the show's presence entirely from the lineup. Fans feared this meant the network was dropping the show, though the network did issue a statement that they were still supportive of the "veteran" Supernatural. There were rumors that, with Reaper in SPN's timeslot, SPN would be moved to Sunday night, "Where shows go to die." But after several weeks' gap and a successful resolution to the strike, production resumed and scripted shows returned to air, with Supernatural in its own Thursday timeslot.

The original storyline for the season had Sam finding a way to keep Dean from going to hell, a way which either began or enhanced Sam's increasing involvement with his demonic abilities. With the loss of six episodes to the strike, that storyline had to be abandoned, leaving Dean to actually have his rendezvous with the hellhounds and going to hell, despite everything he, Sam, and Bobby could do.

I think it worth mentioning that the series' only Christmas episode was penned in anticipation of the strike. Hiatus usually took place over the holiday season; this was one year hiatus would come late. And even in a shortened season and handicapped somewhat by attempts to have the show fall into line with network appearance, there were powerful episodes: Jus in Bello, Mystery Spot, Dream a Little Dream, the Christmas episode. Heightened elements of violence in Season three brought an outcry among fans of violence perpetrated against POC and women. The subject was discussed at some length and with sincere passion, and resulted in the falling away of some previously devoted fans, some of whom have never returned to the show or its fandom.

In this fan's opinion, Season three was a breakwater, both for the show and for fans. It was a difficult season, with many obstacles and stumbling blocks. I don't agree with many decisions that were made by writers and staff and the network, but I have to appreciate the dedication that kept the show on the air, and kept people in the fandom and trying to influence change, which I think has happened, over the time since.

Season three was a rough one. I'm sorry for the folks we lost, but I'm happy the show and its fandom survived.

Comments

[kinkthatwinked.livejournal.com]

As someone who wasn't even a fan of the show yet when S3 aired, I'd like to thank you for this. It's good to get such a thorough perspective on what it was like that year from a fan who was in the thick of it, which it sounds like you were.

Did you write summaries for S1 and S2? Will you be doing the rest of the seasons, too?

[fufaraw]

Yeah, it was minute-to-minute, or at least it felt like that sometimes. The big thing that later-come fans don't understand is how anxious the wait was at the end of every season, up to S4, to find out if SPN had been picked up for the following season. S1 was absolutely the worst, because of the terrible cliffhanger.

I did sort of opinion posts--oh so full of feels--for S1 and S2--two for S2, in fact. And I will be doing all nine days of the countdown, one season per day. I plan to do a more feel-y, less thinky post, with possible pictures, later today for S3.

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this, I don't know much about the behind-the-scenes stuff so I found it really interesting. In some ways I think the writers strike worked in SPN's favor as it made Dean's deadline more urgent and you really felt for him as each episode passed without any hope of finding a way to save him. However, I feel we were cheated of several episodes! It would have been interesting to see which direction the show went in if Sam had saved Dean. Thanks again :)